“I cannot answer any more questions, Mr. Eden,” she returned, after an interval of silence. “It cannot matter to you in the least. Perhaps you say truly that it would have made no difference to you if I had come of a good family. That does not make me less unhappy, or alter my opinion of you. My only wish now is to go away, and to be left alone by you.”
He continued silently prodding at the turf with his stick, his eyes fixed on the ground. She was nervous and anxious to make her escape, and could not help glancing frequently at his face, so strange in its unaccustomed gloom and look of abstraction. Suddenly he lifted his eyes to hers and said:
“And if I refuse to leave you alone, Fan?”
“Must I, then, go away altogether?” she returned with keen distress. “Will you be so cruel as to hunt me out of the place where I earn my bread? I have no one to protect me, Mr. Eden—surely you will not carry out such a threat, and force me to hide myself in some distant place!”
“Do you think you could hide yourself where I would not find you, Fan?” he answered, looking up with a strange gleam in his eyes and a smile on his lips.
She did not reply, although his words troubled her strangely. After a while he added:
“No, Fan; you need not fear any persecution from me. You are just as safe in your shop in Regent Street, where you earn your bread, as you would be at the Antipodes.”
“Thank you,” she returned. “Will you let me go home now?”
“We must go back together as we came,” he said.
“I am sorry you think we must go back together. Is it only to annoy me?”